There,
he's going and said it again
Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew's first trip to Malaysia in 10 years
will be remembered not for any sweetening of the sour relations that plague
the neighbors, but for the 77-year-old minister's blunt comments on Malaysia's
domestic politics. Usually he makes such remarks from his Singapore redoubt,
and you have to wonder why Malaysians invited him in the first place. Admitting
he was "bewildered" by Malaysia's political situation, he diplomatically
declined to comment on the guilty verdict and the nine-year prison sentence
handed down to former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim for sodomy. He
might have exhibited restraint up to that point, but he went on to express
disapproval for PM Mahathir Mohamad's handling of the situation. At a press
conference in Kuala Lumpur, Lee noted that Anwar's sacking "was an unmitigated
disaster and I felt more sorry for Dr. Mahathir than I did for Anwar. Mahathir
had an error of judgment, several errors of judgment which I felt was most
unfortunate." Surprisingly, the remarks elicited little response from the
Mahathir camp, while the government sought to put as positive a spin as
it could on the visit, hoping to improve the always-contentious. Pausing
to defend and clarify his remarks, Lee then went on to give an interview
to Hong Kong's South China Morning Post a few days later in which he opined
that Hong Kong people should either go into business or migrate, but avoid
politics  it's a no-win situation. How's that for tact? Breaking
the ties that bind
Internet tycoon Richard Li , 33, who Asiaweek recently named Asia's best
dealmaker, has begun to distance himself from his father, billionaire Li
Ka-shing (who ranks No. 1 on Asiaweek's Power 50 list this year). On Aug.
16, the young Li resigned his positions in two of his father's companies,
Hutchison Whampoa and Hong Kong Electric Holdings. Two days later, he relaunched
CyberWorks, the merged unit of his soaring startup Pacific Century CyberWorks
and the just-acquired Cable & Wireless HKT. Pledging to double its market
capitalization, Li junior also made clear that his recent moves meant that
CyberWorks would now be competing against Hutchison in the Internet provider
and telecommunications sectors. While making the announcement, he took the
opportunity to take issue with reports that cite HKT as second to Hutchison
in mobile phone services. Looks like Li senior can expect a run for his
money.

LEGAL ASSAULT And Bill Clinton thought he had it hard  he had
only Ken Starr and his posse coming after him. But where the U.S. president
only squared off against a handful of lawyers, Bangladesh's luckless PM
Sheikh Hasina has her hands full with 339. In an unprecedented move, president
of the Bangladesh Supreme Court Bar Association Moinul Hossain filed a contempt
of court petition against Hasina on Aug. 16 and 338 of his colleagues quickly
followed suit, filing a second petition against the premier on Aug. 20.
Hossain accused Hasina of "scandalizing and attacking" the judiciary and
the legal profession in an interview with the BBC last month. She lambasted
the courts in a July 26 broadcast for acting as "secure shelter" for Bangladesh's
hard-core criminals, granting them bail in spite of the efforts of law enforcement
agencies to bring them to justice. And the parallels with Washington don't
end there  partisan politics is alive and well in Dhaka, too. A third
contempt suit looms over Hasina, filed on Aug. 21. The petitioners? 106
opposition MPs, who know a good idea when they think they see one.

PassageMISSINGJafar Siddiq Hamzah, 35, a U.S. resident
and director of the New York-based International Forum on Aceh, since Aug.
5, in Medan, Indonesia. Police say that despite questioning several people
they don't know where Hamzah is. Activists in the region say his disappearance
is only one of seven in Medan in recent months, all of which remain unsolved.

SELANGOR SHUFFLESelangor chief minister Abu Hassan Omar was
replaced by Mohamad Khir Toyo, a 35-year-old dentist, on Aug. 18. He resigned
from the Malaysian state's chief ministership on Aug. 10, citing health
and family reasons. Hassan was reportedly upset by poison-pen letters alleging
that he had married his sister-in-law and had a child with her.
INTERREDLeung Kam-kwong, 42, the Hong Kong civil servant who
died when protesters set alight flammable liquid inside the city's main
immigration office, was buried with the highest honors in Hong Kong on Aug.
20. Chinese immigrants, angry about the government's insistence that they
leave the territory, carried out the Aug. 2 attack. One protester also died
in the incident, seven other people are still hospitalized with serious
injuries.

APPOINTEDGopalkrishna Gandhi, 55, a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi,
to be India's ambassador to Sri Lanka, on Aug. 22. Gandhi was the chief
aide of President K. R. Narayan prior to his high-profile assignment to
the war-torn island nation.